The Tories win an EU poll bounce but Labour shouldn't panic

Just like his EU "veto" in December 2011, David Cameron's promise of a referendum on UK membership has won the Tories a poll bounce. A ComRes survey for tomorrow's Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror shows that Cameron's referendum pledge has boosted support for the Conservatives by five points and more than halved Labour's lead to six (although support for the latter is unchanged at 39 per cent). The rise in Tory support from 28 per cent last month to 33 per cent has come almost entirely at the expense of UKIP, which is down four points to 10 per cent. At the same time, the number of people agreeing that Cameron "is turning out to be a good Prime Minister" has risen by five points to 32 per cent, while the number disagreeing has fallen by six to 46 per cent, giving him a net approval rating of -14, his best score since June 2011.

The sudden surge in Tory support, albeit from an unusually low base of 28 per cent, will cause some discomfort in Labour circles and lead more to conclude that Ed Miliband has miscalculated by refusing to match Cameron's offer of a referendum. If the Tories are only six points behind in mid-term, who's to say they won't win the next election?

There are, however, at least two reasons why Labour shouldn't panic. First, just like the Tory poll bounce following the PM's EU "veto", the surge in support may prove to be only temporary. After a week of favourable coverage from the media (almost all of the fieldwork took place before the negative GDP figure was released), it would be unusual if the Tories' standing hadn't improved. One of Miliband's strengths is that he isn't swayed by short-term fluctuations in the polls and I expect this occasion will prove no exception.

Second, it was always likely that a large number of UKIP supporters would return to the Conservative fold before the next general election. Cameron's promise of a referendum may merely have accelerated the process. The biggest problem for the Tories remains that they are in retreat in those areas - the north, Scotland, Wales - that denied them a majority at the last election.

Finally, it's worth remembering that just six per cent of voters regard the EU as one of the most "important issues" facing Britain. The outcome of the next election will be determined by growth, jobs and public services - the issues that matter to most people. The promise of an EU referendum might have won the Tories back some support from UKIP but, on its own, it won't be enough to transform the party's fortunes.

Update: Part of the shift in support for the parties is attributable to a change in methodology by ComRes. At UK Polling Report, Anthony Wells calculates that without this the numbers would have been: Labour 37 (-2), Conservatives 32 (+4), Liberal Democrats 11 (+2), UKIP 13 (-1), so there would have been a slightly smaller increase in support for the Tories and a significantly smaller fall in support for UKIP.

YouGov's poll for the Sunday Times also shows an increase in support for the Tories, who are up two points to 35 per cent, their best rating in a YouGov survey this year. Labour are down two points to 41 per cent, with the Lib Dems up two to 12 per cent and UKIP down two to seven per cent.

A Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday has the Conservatives up two to 31 per cent, Labour unchanged on 38 per cent, the Lib Dems down one to 10 per cent and UKIP down two to 14 per cent.

Hannan Fodder: This week, Daniel Hannan gets his excuses in early

Since Daniel Hannan, a formerly obscure MEP, has emerged as the anointed intellectual of the Brexit elite, The Staggers is charting his ascendancy...

When I started this column, there were some nay-sayers talking Britain down by doubting that I was seriously going to write about Daniel Hannan every week. Surely no one could be that obsessed with the activities of one obscure MEP? And surely no politician could say enough ludicrous things to be worthy of such an obsession?

They were wrong, on both counts. Daniel and I are as one on this: Leave and Remain, working hand in glove to deliver on our shared national mission. There’s a lesson there for my fellow Remoaners, I’m sure.

Anyway. It’s week three, and just as I was worrying what I might write this week, Dan has ridden to the rescue by writing not one but two columns making the same argument – using, indeed, many of the exact same phrases (“not a club, but a protection racket”). Like all the most effective political campaigns, Dan has a message of the week.

First up, on Monday, there was this headline, in the conservative American journal, the Washington Examiner:

“We will get a good deal – because rational self-interest will overcome the Eurocrats’ fury”

The message of the two columns is straightforward: cooler heads will prevail. Britain wants an amicable separation. The EU needs Britain’s military strength and budget contributions, and both sides want to keep the single market intact.

The Con Home piece makes the further argument that it’s only the Eurocrats who want to be hardline about this. National governments – who have to answer to actual electorates – will be more willing to negotiate.

And so, for all the bluster now, Theresa May and Donald Tusk will be skipping through a meadow, arm in arm, before the year is out.

Before we go any further, I have a confession: I found myself nodding along with some of this. Yes, of course it’s in nobody’s interests to create unnecessary enmity between Britain and the continent. Of course no one will want to crash the economy. Of course.

I’ve been told by friends on the centre-right that Hannan has a compelling, faintly hypnotic quality when he speaks and, in retrospect, this brief moment of finding myself half-agreeing with him scares the living shit out of me. So from this point on, I’d like everyone to keep an eye on me in case I start going weird, and to give me a sharp whack round the back of the head if you ever catch me starting a tweet with the word, “Friends-”.

Anyway. Shortly after reading things, reality began to dawn for me in a way it apparently hasn’t for Daniel Hannan, and I began cataloguing the ways in which his argument is stupid.

Problem number one: Remarkably for a man who’s been in the European Parliament for nearly two decades, he’s misunderstood the EU. He notes that “deeper integration can be more like a religious dogma than a political creed”, but entirely misses the reason for this. For many Europeans, especially those from countries which didn’t have as much fun in the Second World War as Britain did, the EU, for all its myriad flaws, is something to which they feel an emotional attachment: not their country, but not something entirely separate from it either.

Consequently, it’s neither a club, nor a “protection racket”: it’s more akin to a family. A rational and sensible Brexit will be difficult for the exact same reasons that so few divorcing couples rationally agree not to bother wasting money on lawyers: because the very act of leaving feels like a betrayal.

Problem number two: even if everyone was to negotiate purely in terms of rational interest, our interests are not the same. The over-riding goal of German policy for decades has been to hold the EU together, even if that creates other problems. (Exhibit A: Greece.) So there’s at least a chance that the German leadership will genuinely see deterring more departures as more important than mutual prosperity or a good relationship with Britain.

And France, whose presidential candidates are lining up to give Britain a kicking, is mysteriously not mentioned anywhere in either of Daniel’s columns, presumably because doing so would undermine his argument.

So – the list of priorities Hannan describes may look rational from a British perspective. Unfortunately, though, the people on the other side of the negotiating table won’t have a British perspective.

Problem number three is this line from the Con Home piece:

“Might it truly be more interested in deterring states from leaving than in promoting the welfare of its peoples? If so, there surely can be no further doubt that we were right to opt out.”

I could go on, about how there’s no reason to think that Daniel’s relatively gentle vision of Brexit is shared by Nigel Farage, UKIP, or a significant number of those who voted Leave. Or about the polls which show that, far from the EU’s response to the referendum pushing more European nations towards the door, support for the union has actually spiked since the referendum – that Britain has become not a beacon of hope but a cautionary tale.

But I’m running out of words, and there’ll be other chances to explore such things. So instead I’m going to end on this:

Hannan’s argument – that only an irrational Europe would not deliver a good Brexit – is remarkably, parodically self-serving. It allows him to believe that, if Brexit goes horribly wrong, well, it must all be the fault of those inflexible Eurocrats, mustn’t it? It can’t possibly be because Brexit was a bad idea in the first place, or because liberal Leavers used nasty, populist ones to achieve their goals.

Read today, there are elements of Hannan’s columns that are compelling, even persuasive. From the perspective of 2020, I fear, they might simply read like one long explanation of why nothing that has happened since will have been his fault.

Jonn Elledge is the editor of the New Statesman's sister site CityMetric. He is on Twitter, far too much, as @JonnElledge.